Today’s Memorial Day bike ride reminded me of when there were parades with bands and retired soldiers with lots of flags. None of that today though. The bike ride began at 9:14 AM, which is earlier than most of my bike rides. But the Giro is over so no bike races to delay biking. I rode my new Lynskey Helix bike after making a few adjustments but during the ride I discovered a major disappointment; more on that below. Wanting to add miles to May I chose my “New Caney – Roman Forest – Valley Ranch” route heading north and looping through the small town of Roman Forest. I biked 41.57 miles according to Strava. SportTracks is a little more generous at 41.58 miles.

I wasn’t the only cyclist out with two passing me going the other direction before I got to US59 going north.

Checking the weather as I got ready the wind was going to be a challenge. Not so much getting to Roman forest but on the return back to Kingwood. With summer getting closer the temperature was in the 80’s at the start and upper 80’s when I finished at 12:51 PM. Weather conditions at the start and finish: start 82 (humidity 77%, dew point 74), mostly cloudy, wind S 16 mph gusts 24 mph; finish 87 (humidity 68%, dew point 75), mostly cloudy, wind S 17 mph gusts 25 mph. I felt the strong gusts as I biked through Valley Ranch on the way back but the legs pedaled through.

Back to the major disappointment. Yesterday I rode the Lynskey Helix for the first time. I thought the pedaling effort was easier than I expected but attributed it the excitement of the new bike. Today I noticed the same ease of pedaling in what I thought was the 35×15 and 35×13 gears. I knew the rear cassette gears were the same as my Cervelo Caledonia but I had not checked the crankset gearing. On the way back to US59 I stopped at the Shell station for ice and water. While I was there I checked the crankset and saw it wasn’t the 48×35 I ordered but the 43×30. No wonder the pedaling was easier in those two gear combinations. I sent an email to Lynskey asking how they would fix this. Below is a picture of the wrong crankset.

Today’s bike ride was the 3rd time using this route. The average distance for the 3 rides is 41.67 miles with today just slightly less. The different gearing meant the resulting speed for a given gear combination was lower than on my Cervelo. I wondered why it was hard to get my speed up to 18 or 19 mph compared to the Cervelo. The cadence would 100 but the speed was only 16 or 17 mph. This probably came in handy with the strong wind gusts though. Link to the AXS.SRAM.com ride report.

Strava reported “This was harder than your usual effort” for the ride and with the headwind I agreed on the way back to Kingwood. At one point when I stopped at Valley Ranch Parkway and TX 99 the wind kept pushing me from the side making standing with my right foot on the ground difficult.